Beast
by AuroraAustralice
Summary: Dramione oneshot during sixth year, What Draco's thoughts are about the oncoming war and how he finally asks Hermione for help , Please do read and review. Dark Draco!
1. Chapter 1

Draco Malfoy stood absolutely still, his chest and abdomen hurt and unconsciously he rubbed the phantom ache, Potter's Sectumsempra and his father's constant Cruciatus's had made his chest into a map of large scars and un-healable gashes.

He knew his father was only trying to prepare him, was only trying to make his body immune to the Cruciatus but he resented him, hated him even if he was honest.

Draco was tried… so very- very tired, exhaustion had taken over each of his limbs; it poured out of his very pores.

What had his life become, hatred and pain and anger and fear? This was all he knew, this is what he had been turned into and everyday he lived under a shadow of oppression and death. But what was he to do? His family, his beloved mother… his only family as far as he was concerned was trapped in this prison created by his father.

He thought with contempt, _father _ … Lucius Malfoy was undeserving of that term; a term that was supposed to demand respect, a term that held in it all the qualities… love, pride, encouragement. Lucius was a bully, a bully who had in his mad desire for power cut Draco's poor mother of from everything she loved, everything that she deserved. And now she was a mere shadow, who drifted thought the cold halls of Malfoy Manor as nothing but a reflection of her former self. Since she was a child it had been drilled into her; duty to family above all else and she was now paying the price, her 'duty' to her family was to sacrifice her only child, to watch as he slowly became a husk, to feel his fear and his anxiousness, to watch him slowly wither away into nothingness and do nothing about.

Draco hated that word now… duty… it had ruined his life, taken him away from all he loved. He was meant now to be a mindless solider, to kill without remorse, to hurt without feeling the sick churning in his gut, to torture innocents, to create fear and horror without so much as batting an eyelid.

He looked up; the broken mirror in front of him mirrored his expression. All his desperation, his fear, his savage hate. His life had become like this broken mirror, irreparable and beyond all help.

Outside the pitter-patter of small feet indicated the approach of first year children, so young thought Draco. Too young to face the War, too young to be victims of the horrible, heinous caravan of endless death. They deserved lives filled with laughter and not death, lives where they were allowed to be silly, to play pranks and were not forced to fight. They were not meant to die but when war collects it's tragedies it takes the innocents first, the believers, the children, the ones who have faith that the sun will rise again. Death always takes those closest to heaven first.

Everyone had to pay a price and he was still paying his. His hands unbuttoned his white shirt and in the broken mirror he looked at his chest, at each ugly gash and rip, at each bright red cut that dug deep into his skin, at each memory that belong to it, at each piece of burnt, scarred flesh.

Oh yes… he paid his price and he would continue paying if he wanted to keep his mother safe. His finger traced a single long scar right down his chest, a war trophy some would say; he called it a payment. If he had to bare being hated to protect his loved ones he would. He would be hated and sneered at and jeered, called a coward and cursed at if that was what it would take. And he would take it silently.

He continued to look at his pale, waxy face in the mirror, his pale face and his ugly, scarred body. He had become a beast, an ugly creature worthy of the hate and fear he generated.

A single white finger reached out and traced the face in the mirror; the expression on his face was the ugliest, most disgusting thing he had ever seen. It was ugly because of the lack of warmth in his eyes, it was ugly because of fear that was reflected back, it was ugly with hate, it was ugly with lies, it was ugly with darkness, it was ugly with wrath, it was ugly because of the lack of love. It was ugly most of all in its desperation.

What did Potter have to worry about; he would always be the hero of his story, whether he died now or by the hand of Voldemort. Draco would always be the beast, the liar, evil but who knew his side, his story. No one told the story of the beast, for the darkness of his life was not something any one wanted to hear.

No one was there to listen.

It would have been so easy for him to commit suicide, to just pick up his wand and kill himself or to simply give up when Potter's curse had hit him but he fought because he knew that someone… somewhere would someday listen to his story and remember him not as the beast but as a hero in his own right. A hero who was doused in darkness not by his will but for the survival of others.

A lone tear made its way down his pale, bony cheek and fell on the abandoned bathroom's sink, making a loud clinking sound, the only sound other than the giggles of the small children outside.

It was almost enough for Draco, to keep him going… that laughter. The sound of carefree innocence, something he so desired. The beast took his happiness where he got it. Each shriek, giggle and chuckle made his heart lift just a little. Made him believe that maybe despite who he fought for that good might triumph, that maybe… someday a child would laugh like this again. A child who lived in a peaceful world, a child who grew up untouched by darkness, a child who grew up happy.

He hoped and for the first time in years, he sent up an earnest prayer.

"Draco." Came a tentative voice from behind him, "I… I … I came to apologize for what happened with Harry and I know you hate me and you hate my blood and I am filthy and disgusting to you but… but… but please know that I wish you well and I hope that whatever is plaguing you will go away." Said Hermione Granger in a rush, coming out from behind one of the pillars smiling sheepishly.

Little did Draco know….

He was looking at his salvation.

"I don't hate you Gra.. Hermione." He said softly, his back still turned, "Is this what you wanted to see?" he said turning and lifting up his shirt sleeve. He pulled back the white cotton to show her his dark mark, ashamed at the horror in her expression, "This is what you wanted to know isn't it? If I have become a death eater or not."

"I… don't know what to say." She whispered, her voice trembling.

Draco looked at her hurt, "I would never hurt you…" he said softly, "Never…. Not you…"

And suddenly the giggles rose in pitch, right outside the door and Draco looked up and turned to Hermione urgently.

"You must promise me one thing Hermione." He said, his voice gentle yet urgent.

Hermione looked at his face and saw the anxious light reflected back in his strange, emotion filled eyes, "What is it?"

"Don't let us win…" he whispered, looking at the door where he knew the children were.

Hermione stood in a daze, shocked at what he said but before she could reply he had already disappeared.

…..

**Please Do review! **


	2. Chapter 2

"Let me help you!" she cried over the howling winds, her hand reaching out towards him.

"No one can help me Hermione… leave… leave now!" he said coldly, refusing to take her hand, refusing what she was so readily offering.

He must have been a fool, to not take that hand. But he was unredeemable, there was nothing she could do, there was nothing anyone could do.

"Just follow through with my promise; please… just do what I told you to. That is the only way you can help me." He said, his voice faint over the sound of crashing waves and shrieks from the wind.

Hermione was pale, the wind sounded like it was being tortured… like someone was rapidly Crucioing it into insanity. The howls and cries made her cringe, each of them fell on her ear like a bolt of lightning.

Black clouds moved over the dwindling sun, covering everything in endless shadows. That was were monsters breed Hermione thought with a shudder, Draco felt like he belonged here, among these monsters.

"Draco please!" she cried, "Please don't disappear into the darkness! You don't belong here!"

He couldn't look back, because he knew that if he looked back he would want to return and there was no way he could return.

"There is no place for a beast like me, among your kind." He snarled, trying but failing to push her away.

"Draco you are not a beast…." Hermione whispered, praying that the unfriendly wind would carry her voice.

"Hermione Granger… you of all people should know that there are beasts much worse than the kind found among the wild." Came a new voice, cold and cruel. Its harsh tones ripped at Hermione, tugging on her heart and creating a coat of ice around it. "Draco is one such beast, I have made sure he is." Said the same voice, ending on a sinister laugh that made the trees around her shudder and quake and the shadows to dance in fear.

"DRACO! Don't listen!" she yelled over the wind, "Please come back, please…"

Around them there seemed to be a wall erected, like the wind was pulling her away from him and the shadows were dragging him back into the darkness.

"Fight!" she cried, "Fight them, come back for me!"

But Draco was a coward, a weak- pathetic coward, he couldn't fight… there was too much at stake, so he just looked at her with his sad gray eyes, eyes that glinted with the darkness of a beast and fear of a child, "Let me go…." He said, "Let me go because there is nothing more I can do." And he stood, letting each of his own inadequacies, each of his own sins, his fears, his lies drag him back into the depths of the mire that he knew he would never emerge from.

And she watched him go with the same kind of sadness that a war torn country's widow watches her husband go, knowing in her heart that he may never return, that he may never kiss her again, never touch her again.

That was absurd… no one in Draco's life had ever looked at him like that.

Like they might actually miss him and for a moment he got the strength to fight but he pushed it down savagely….

Hermione watched as the shadows swallowed him whole and felt the salty tears dripping down her face.

Infront of her was the most misunderstood hero of all, the hero who couldn't spread his wings because he knew they were broken from the day he first discovered them, a hero who would never hear adulation, praise, applause or even a compliment because he died a man surrounded in black, here was a hero so lost in his own pain and fear that he could never hope to emerge, here was a hero who died the death of an animal.

Yet a hero he was all the same…

And then she woke, her body covered by sweat and her mind buzzing with the faint strains that remained of her nightmare….

….

_**Please do review :) I never planned for a second part but I just had so much angst inside of me today that I couldn't help writing this :D You may draw your own conclusions on what happened after this. **_


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